Editorial: Con Johnson a Victim of Antioch City Council Incompetence

The errors in judgement continue to make waves in the City of Antioch as city manager Con Johnson was placed on administrative leave last week.

This was bound to happen at some point because Johnson should have never been hired in the first place. This is no knock-on Johnson either. He was a cop and his experience is in law enforcement, not city management.

Also, good for Johnson for having his friends in the right place at the right time to give him this incredible opportunity and offer. I doubt many people who when approached to be a city manager at a $266k a year salary would turn it down.

Ultimately, Johnson was given a chance and it blew up rather quickly.

Johnson is clearly unprepared for the job. He could not reign in the council who continues to spend money they don’t have. Meanwhile, his lack of knowledge on multiple topics within the city is obvious—not a knock on Johnson, he was never really given a chance to learn because the council threw item after item at him—just like all the other department heads who have a plate they can’t even clear with thousands of action items to accomplish.

But again, this comes back to lack of good judgement by three members of the Antioch city council.

If you recall, the Antioch City Council bypassed a transparent city manager national search after city manager Ron Bernal retired. The council then bypassed assistant City Manager Rosanna Bayon Moore—who has since left. Instead, they opted for Johnson, who to this day still has a questionable resume—he retired as a Lieutenant III from San Francisco Police, not a captain as claimed by the mayor.

Johnson still has never talked about his resume while it’s been made public about his past bankruptcy, foreclosure and judgments against him. Another red flag, which the city council ignored, is while interim city manager, it came to light a total of three employee complaints had been filed against Johnson—again, never discussed or denied.  Finally, Johnson attempted to fire interim police chief Tony Morefield through email before that was rescinded.

The hiring of Johnson was a complete disservice to everyone involved, including Johnson,  and was nothing short of circus-like-behavior by members of the city council.

This is the equivalent of the San Francisco 49ers replacing Kyle Shanahan with a JV high school football defensive coordinators coach on a losing team and one day making him an NFL head coach. One isn’t going to succeed because one is not qualified.

I can continue down the path from missed council meetings, late to meetings, and even photographs of Johnson appearing to be sleeping during council meetings, but I shall digress. Johnson was ultimately placed in the position to carry the water of three members of the city council—not actually think for himself or support staff.

The council intentionally ignored all the red flags and still fail to take any responsibility for it—now they are dealing in closed session with significant exposure to litigation. What that is? One can only guess.

It could be an employee improperly fired. A city manager complaint? Improper use of public funds? A broken contract? Harassment of some sort? Did laws get broken? Were kickbacks being given somewhere? Who knows.

Either way, every Antioch voter should be asking themselves what in the actual —- is this council doing?

Here is a birds eye view of what I believe has occurred:

1. Johnson was hired to carry out the agenda of Mayor Lamar Thorpe, Councilmembers Tamisha Torres-Walker and Monica Wilson—no one else mattered as long as they had 3 votes.
2. Hiring Johnson allowed for the hiring of his friend Chief Steve Ford to clean up the Antioch Police Department under the vision of Thorpe.
3. Antioch Police Officers Association blasts Mayor for muzzling department–its a good letter!
4. Over time, I believe Johnson got unhappy with the direction of Thorpe and dealing with his shenanigans. This started after Johnson gave Ford room to run the Antioch Police the way it needed to be run in an effort to actually improve public safety and transparency. A change was needed to stop officers from leaving and improving recruitment.
5. With muzzle removed thanks to Chief Ford and Johnson, the Antioch Police has been utilizing PIO Ashley Crandell and bypass City PIO Rolando Bonilla. Under Crandell, transparency drastically improved as police could give information to the public, not the public getting the information through the mayor.
6. Then the Bonilla fiasco happened with the fake quote of Chief Ford calling Antioch Police Officers Association “circus like antics” which prompted the Bonilla firing.
7. Con Johnson placed on leave as the city currently sits at 21% unfilled positions.

As you can see, this is like the show House of Cards, but a much much much much much worse script.

I still do not believe Johnson should have ever been placed in the role of city manager, but I also believe he attempted to begin doing the right things which went against the mayor. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do much because his job hung over his head and he became stuck.

Now Johnson finds himself on leave after both a 3-0 vote and a 5-0 city council vote—which by the way, the city attorney is doing no one any favors either. This is all going down under his watch with litigation pending, the attorney is supposed to protect the city, not the mayor.

The silliness seems to continue even when placing Johnson on leave and picking a replacement.

With Thorpe and Torres-Walker absent from the council meeting, Ana Cortez was placed as acting city manager. This was rescinded days later after a special meeting was called by Thorpe—simply to get his “yes” man in place.

Under acting City Manager Forrest Ebbs, its only a matter of time before the Antioch Police Department is muzzled once again and if Chief Ford goes public he is then fired. The community is then back where information stops flowing to the and the only rhetoric to the public is that of Mayor Thorpe.

At the end of the day, Con Johnson is a victim of the incompetent Antioch City Council which ultimately results in the public paying the price. I do not feel sorry for Mr. Johnson because he put himself in the position to take a job he was unqualified for and ultimately having to deal with a complete narcissistic man child of a mayor on a daily basis.

Johnson and Bonilla may be the “fall guys” today, and rightfully so,  but the deflection away from the actions and incompetence of the Antioch City Council has to stop.

It is time for all department heads, unions, employees, to take a vote of no confidence on the Antioch City Council. The residents should also begin to showcase their frustrations on economic development, rent control, to public safety.

At this point, given the actions of the city council, none of them competent to make decisions on behalf of the residents of Antioch.

Mike Burkholder
Publisher of ContraCosta.news
[email protected]